OKX 2026 Investment Outlook: Asset On-Chain, Intelligence and Privacy
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OKX 2026 Investment Outlook: Asset On-Chain, Intelligence and Privacy
Three Major Trends in Crypto's Future: Asset Transformation, Entity Transformation, and Regulatory Transformation.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsAs we approach 2026, the crypto industry is undergoing a profound paradigm shift, moving beyond the past four years of infrastructure-focused "road-building." OKX Ventures defines this as the dawn of the "Kinetic Finance" era, where the core focus is no longer on network speed, but on the efficiency of on-chain asset flow and yield generation.
To get straight to the point, we believe future opportunities in Crypto will concentrate around three core transformations:
- Asset Transformation: From "On-Chaining" to "Global Settlement." RWA will enable seamless, 24/7 flow of real-world assets (like US Treasuries, real estate, IP) on-chain, leading to a qualitative leap in capital efficiency.
- Agent Transformation: From "Humans" to "AI Agents." The primary actors in trading will shift from humans to AI. DeFi protocols will become "financial APIs" for AI to call upon, with capital actively seeking the world's optimal yields as if endowed with intelligence.
- Regulatory Transformation: From "Ex-Post Enforcement" to "Code-Level Compliance." Privacy and compliance will no longer be obstacles but infrastructure embedded within code, paving the final path for large-scale institutional capital from Wall Street and beyond to enter.
We firmly believe that projects capable of using code to solve real-world trust costs and enhance capital efficiency will become the cornerstones of this new era. Over the past years, OKX Ventures' investment thesis in infrastructure has primarily focused on the robustness of underlying protocols and the expansion of network capacity. We will continue to seek out and support the builders defining this future.
The year 2025 witnessed significant industry progress: On the compliant capital access front, the approval of spot BTC ETFs opened a path for traditional capital, with cumulative net inflows surpassing the $50 billion milestone, formally establishing crypto assets as a staple in global macro hedging portfolios. In underlying technology, Ethereum's Pectra upgrade in May and subsequent Fusaka developments reduced consensus layer communication load by over 90% and increased network Blob data throughput fourfold, combined with native account abstraction capabilities, clearing obstacles for hundreds of millions of users engaging in high-frequency interactions. On-chain transaction performance saw a qualitative leap, with high-performance DEXs like Hyperliquid repeatedly setting records for daily trading volumes reaching $20 billion. In asset scaling, RWA achieved a critical breakthrough; BlackRock's BUIDL fund alone surpassed $2.5 billion by year-end, proving the full operational viability of the "two-way valve" between on-chain and off-chain liquidity.
In 2025 alone, OKX Ventures participated in investments across dozens of projects spanning RWA, Infra, DeFi, AI, stablecoins, and consumer applications, continuously committed to supporting industry innovation.
I. The Deep Financialization of RWA
RWA is no longer simply about issuing a "digital receipt" for real-world assets (like houses, bonds). We are entering the RWA 2.0 phase, whose core is transforming blockchain into a global, 24/7 settlement center. Imagine selling an asset that previously took two days to settle (T+2); now, using blockchain, instant settlement (T+0) is possible. This isn't just a bit faster; it fundamentally alters the operational efficiency of global capital.
RWA Asset Layering: From On-Chain US Treasuries to Synthetic Equities and Non-Standard Credit
The US dollar is the globally accepted currency, enabling the rapid development of stablecoins like USDT and USDC. US equities follow, which is why we see many DEXs and CEXs venturing into equity tokenization. However, a massive volume of global assets remains non-USD. Assets naturally have liquidity gaps. For instance, US Treasuries have extremely high liquidity, while real estate and private credit are deeply non-standard assets. The core of RWA 2.0 lies in abandoning the "one-size-fits-all" AMM model and constructing tailored issuance and trading architectures for different asset tiers. Standardized assets are the easiest to bring on-chain and scale. According to RWA.xyz data, tokenized US Treasury volume has exceeded $7.3 billion (a year-over-year increase of over 300%). On-chain US equities are becoming the second-largest growth pole for standardized assets after Treasuries, currently around $500 million, with core value in breaking traditional stock market trading hour restrictions (enabling 24/7 trading) and geographical access barriers. This trend suggests on-chain finance will not only possess a "risk-free rate" (Treasuries) but also "equity risk assets" (stocks), thereby constructing a complete on-chain portfolio. In contrast, non-standard assets like private credit maintain active loan volumes around $8 billion. This vast gap indicates that high-yield non-standard assets remain constrained by pricing and liquidity challenges. According to BCG predictions, the RWA market size will reach $16 trillion by 2030, with 2026 being a key inflection point in this growth curve, where on-chain non-stablecoin RWA volume is expected to surpass the $100 billion milestone. We believe this is significant because it marks RWA's evolution from a niche experiment into a mainstream narrative for a trillion-dollar market. RWA has transcended the simple mapping stage, evolving into a layered architecture based on asset liquidity characteristics.
Stablecoins Reshaping the Global Settlement Network
Undoubtedly, stablecoins themselves are Crypto's killer product. They are far more than just trading pairs on exchanges; they are an alternative for cross-border payments, poised to gradually replace the traditional SWIFT system. Traditional cross-border payments typically involve 3-5% fees and 2-3 day settlement cycles. In contrast, on-chain stablecoin payments have fees below 1% and are nearly instant. As of November 2025, the annual settlement volume of on-chain stablecoins has surpassed $12 trillion, officially exceeding Visa's annual settlement volume. The current stablecoin market cap has stabilized above $210 billion, with over 40% of trading volume occurring during non-trading hours (when traditional banks are closed), filling the "liquidity vacuum" in global financial infrastructure. Furthermore, the composability of full-asset tokenization is noteworthy: Leading DeFi protocols (like Aave, MakerDAO) have integrated RWA assets, creating a "Lego effect." Whether Treasuries (like BUIDL, USDY), real estate, or private credit, assets are successfully used as underlying collateral for DeFi lending protocols. By the end of 2025, BlackRock's BUIDL fund and Ondo Finance's USDY have been formally integrated into Aave V4 and Sky (formerly MakerDAO) protocols. Approximately 30% of on-chain tokenized Treasuries (about $2.2 billion) are being directly used as underlying collateral for lending protocols, rather than sitting idle in wallets. Traditional financial institutions, leveraging on-chain T+0 real-time settlement capabilities, have increased capital utilization by 2-3 times, completing a substantive migration of backend infrastructure to decentralized ledgers.
OKX Ventures Focus Projects
OKX Ventures focuses on and invests in infrastructure-type projects that can compress trust costs and efficiency friction at scale, addressing the three core bottlenecks in the current on-chain capital market (including RWA 2.0): (1) Settlement depth and capital liquidity, (2) Verifiability and auditability, (3) Sustainable yield—essentially, a reliable on-chain money market rate.
- Axis is building a verifiable, multi-strategy on-chain delta-neutral arbitrage engine, packaging execution capabilities once exclusive to institutions into composable yield primitives. Unlike products reliant on a single trade (e.g., basis), Axis dynamically allocates across a basket of market structure opportunities: funding/basis arbitrage, cross-venue spot spreads, CEX-DEX spreads, and cross-currency/regional premiums, making yield sources more diversified and resilient as AUM expands. Its first product, USDx (and its staked version sUSDx), packages this engine as a USD-pegged asset, providing machine-readable transparency (high-frequency PoR/NAV disclosures, segregated custody/collateral proofs, and independent third-party verification), thereby reducing discounts for black-box yields and counterparty risk premiums. Longer-term, the same execution infrastructure will extend to OTC/RFQ execution, quoting/pricing APIs, and liquidity provision, positioning Axis as an on-chain arbitrage-as-infrastructure layer for USD (later expanding to BTC and gold-related products).
- Accountable is building a privacy-preserving verification infrastructure layer, transforming institutional trust into machine-readable engineering primitives. Its Data Verification Network (DVN) can be deployed in clients' own environments, connecting data sources like exchanges, wallets, custodians, and banks, and outputting cryptographically verifiable proofs—allowing counterparties to verify key states like assets, liabilities, and asset restrictions/pledges without exposing original positions or handing over sensitive account permissions, underpinned by cryptographic capabilities like zkTLS and secure computation. This essentially upgrades PoR from periodic reports to continuous, insurable verification: stronger audit granularity, lower information asymmetry, ultimately reflected in lower counterparty risk premiums. The DVN already supports real-time PoR/NAV workflows for real issuers in production. Long-term, this verification track will extend to trusted distribution surfaces like Vault-as-a-Service, making verification not just a compliance cost but a component that enhances capital efficiency and product go-to-market advantages.
II. The Deep Integration of AI and the Crypto World
The AI wave is sweeping the globe. As the most prominent technological wave today, its every move profoundly impacts all aspects of society. In the future, what sparks will AI ignite in the crypto field? We believe AI will have significant potential in areas like agents and machine payments.
AI Agent Economy and M2M Payment Networks
In multi-agent collaboration networks, different Agents (e.g., data analysts, trade executors, risk control officers) require high-frequency interaction. Blockchain smart contracts provide the permissionless trust foundation and payment rails for this machine-to-machine (M2M) collaboration. This is mainly reflected in three aspects: The AI Payment sector has entered an early explosive phase. Google AP2, OpenAI × Stripe ACP, Visa Agentic Commerce, and x402—four giants—are simultaneously deploying agent payment infrastructure. Google's AP2 protocol standardizes Agent payment interfaces, while Stripe ACP (Agentic Checkout Protocol) already processes over 2 million API calls daily. Visa's Agentic Commerce pilot shows AI agents autonomously completing e-commerce payments with a 98.5% success rate, far exceeding traditional automated scripts. M2M payments will also experience rapid growth. VanEck predicts that with the adoption of Web3-native Agent payment protocols like x402, on-chain automated trading volume driven by AI Agents will reach $5 billion daily by 2027, with a projected CAGR exceeding 120%. Service invocation costs are drastically reduced. Utilizing blockchain micropayments for on-demand Agent service invocation, compared to the traditional Web2-era API subscription model (SaaS), reduces service invocation costs by 60%, with single interaction costs as low as $0.0001, greatly reducing economic friction and loss in multi-agent collaboration. When Agent A completes a specific task, Agent B can achieve millisecond USDC micropayments via Lightning Network or Layer 2 protocols, establishing an automated value flow system without human intervention.
AI and the Verifiable Data Layer
As AI evolves, "world models" like JEPA (proposed by deep learning pioneer Yann LeCun) and Sora are replacing pure LLMs. Their core need has shifted from text generation to precise simulation of the physical world's causality (Physics & Causality), requiring more authentic and reliable real-world data. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 75% of global AI training data will consist of synthetic data. Data loops lacking real physical feedback will very likely lead to "Model Collapse." According to Messari's market analysis, cryptographically verified real-world datasets are valued 15 to 20 times higher than ordinary web-scraped data due to their scarcity and authenticity. High-fidelity training of world models heavily relies on high-dimensional physical data containing 3D space, depth information, and motion trajectories. Blockchain, through cryptographic signature technology, provides immutable on-chain proof for each data point collected by sensors, solving the pervasive problems of "data pollution" and "synthetic forgery" in AI training at the source, building a trusted bridge between the physical and digital worlds. By Q3 2025, active edge sensor nodes on blockchain networks have exceeded 4.5 million, providing approximately 20 PB of verifiable physical data daily to various world models, becoming the cornerstone supporting next-generation AI cognition.
zkML and Decentralized Edge Compute: Privacy-Preserving, Trusted On-Device Inference
With the performance leap of high-performance small parameter models (SLMs) like Llama 3-8B and Phi-3, AI inference compute is undergoing a paradigm shift from centralized clouds to edge devices (phones, PCs, IoT devices). Market data shows that decentralized edge inference networks built using idle consumer-grade devices (like io.net or Akash) offer H100-level compute at about $1.49/hour, a 60% to 75% reduction compared to AWS or Nvidia cloud inference services (~$4.00 - $6.50/hour), presenting strong economic arbitrage. Thanks to technological pushes from projects like Accountable and Modulus Labs, demand for zkML verification services from on-chain prediction markets, insurance protocols, and high-value asset management saw a 230% quarter-over-quarter growth in Q3 2025, indicating a rigid demand for "trusted inference" in high-value DeFi scenarios. To address risks of data forgery or model tampering due to untrusted edge devices, zkML (Zero-Knowledge Machine Learning) becomes a critical trust infrastructure. Emerging protocols like Accountable are building standardized verification layers, allowing nodes to generate mathematical proofs that rigorously verify on-chain that "this inference result was indeed correctly produced by a specific model running on an edge device" without leaking any input data (like medical images or financial private keys), achieving a "trustless" closed loop for decentralized compute.
OKX Ventures Focus Projects
- Aspecta: Essentially, it builds "digital passports" for Multi-Agents. In the future world, AIs will collaborate and transact like humans. But the question is, how can one AI trust another unfamiliar AI? Aspecta creates a "digital passport" for each AI. By analyzing its past behavior and code records, it assigns a credit score. This way, AIs can establish trust and even achieve uncollateralized lending. In the economic network where Agents invoke each other's services, Aspecta generates verifiable credit scores for each Agent by parsing on-chain interaction graphs and GitHub code contributions. This is a prerequisite for achieving M2M uncollateralized lending and trusted collaboration.
- LAB: It is an AI intent compiler for Web3, utilizing the latest multimodal understanding capabilities to translate vague human natural language (like "arbitrage with the lowest risk") into structured on-chain execution instructions. It solves the "last mile" connection problem between AI technology and complex DeFi protocols, significantly lowering the barrier for non-technical users to employ advanced DeFi strategies.
- Hyperion: It is the physical anchor for AI world models, providing verifiable physical world data. It utilizes a decentralized mapping network to collect geospatial data, combined with AI inference, to provide on-chain agents with zero-knowledge-proof-verified "location services." This is crucial for RWA asset management and embodied intelligence (robot) scheduling that rely on real physical states.
III. Institutional Adoption: Macro Hedging, Privacy Infrastructure, and Smart Compliance
In the eyes of institutions, crypto assets have completed the transition from "speculative assets" to "global macro hedging tools." A very clear change is that in the last cycle, retail traders might not have paid attention to macro events, whereas in this cycle, ignoring data like the Fed, US-China tariffs, or CPI easily leads to passivity. Compliance is no longer an obstacle but a moat for institutions. The issuance of digital banking licenses will allow seamless swapping between crypto assets and fiat. Currently, three innovative products are emerging. First, basis arbitrage and volatility products—institutions are no longer satisfied with passive holding. CME Bitcoin futures open interest repeatedly hits new highs, with institutional long positions significantly increasing. Second, Basis Trade, utilizing the spread between spot ETFs and futures
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